Confidence resets reveal hierarchical adaptive learning in humans
Fig 5
Control experiment: Subjects take into account the higher-order structure of the dynamics.
In the control experiment, change points were uncoupled between the two transition probabilities, thereby abolishing the possibility to infer a change in one transition probability by only observing the other transition type. (A) Theoretical predictions for changes in confidence around the target streaks. The optimal hierarchical model for the main task assumes that change points are coupled (“hierarchical model, coupled changes”), which is no longer optimal in the case of uncoupled change points. This model was nevertheless used to identify suspicious and non-suspicious streaks and indeed it showed an effect of streak type on the change in confidence here in the control task as in the main task (Fig 4C). The optimal hierarchical Bayesian model for this control experiment is similar to this first model, the only difference is that it assumes that change points are uncoupled (“hierarchical model, uncoupled changes”). As expected, this model correctly showed no effect of streak type on the change in confidence. The flat model, by definition, ignores change points and therefore whether they are coupled or uncoupled, as a result it shows no effect of streak type (as in the main experiment). (B) Subjects showed no difference between streak types, like the hierarchical model for uncoupled changes. The results of the main task are reproduced from Fig 4C to facilitate visual comparison. (C) Subjects overall perform well in the control task, showing a tight agreement with the optimal hierarchical model for uncoupled change (the optimal model for this task) for both predictions (left) and confidence (right). In panels A and B, the error bars correspond to the inter-subject quartiles, distributions show subjects' data. In panel C, data points are mean ± s.e.m across subjects. In all panels; significance levels correspond to p = 0.048 (*), p<0.01 (**), p<0.001(***) in a two-tailed t-test.